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Valhalla Spectra
The Spectra is a home video game console released by Valhalla Microtronics on July 14, 1997 in North America, October 15, 1998 in Europe, Australia and Japan. It was the first in the sixth generation of video game consoles, preceding SEGA's Dreamcast, Sony's PlayStation 2, Nintendo's GameCube and Microsoft's Xbox. The Spectra was Valhalla's first console as their entry to the console market. Being ahead of its time, the Spectra was also the first console to include a built in modem for their SpectreNet online service. The console competed directly with the Sony PlayStation, the Sega Saturn, the Nintendo 64, and the Sega Dreamcast (at the time). History Development Development on the Spectra began in 1994 as a response to Sony's PlayStation. At the time where the fifth generation of video game consoles began to release, Dave Willett and John Matthews conceptualized a game console in order to beat the performance and its visual fidelity of the existing consoles of the time. Originally codenamed as "Prisma", the console would have a Motorola 68EC060 microprocessor running at 66MHz with 4MB of RAM and a custom ASIC chip that can handle and render arcade-level 3D graphics in real time with better texture quality and higher resolution, plus anti-aliasing, texture filtering and other features, which it would be slated for release sometime in 1996. Unfortunately, the proposed specifications and release date lead some drawbacks to Valhalla Microtronics, fearing that the proposed specifications would become obsolete by the year 1998. Because of that, Valhalla scrapped the original specifications, and eventually, delayed the release date to 1997, in order work on the latter PowerPC version that would be released as the Spectra, which the development team of Matthews would recommend using a PowerPC processor. Sometime in 1995 and early 1996, reports surfaced that Valhalla would collaborate with IBM/Motorola and 3Dfx for an upcoming console with a scheduled release date within 1997. Willett and Matthews confirmed it in an interview on an article by Electronic Gaming Monthly in May 1996. "We have made a deal with IBM/Motorola and 3Dfx, as we are ready to build our next prototype for an upcoming console. We chose the PowerPC 603e as the main processor, because it offers raw performance similar to a Power Macintosh and one of those expansion cards for the Amiga. And, it was already widely used in Macs and Amiga expansion cards. For the graphics chip, we chose the 3Dfx Voodoo since they already used it in some arcade games and feature-wise, you would see the better graphical quality of the Voodoo, just how it looks similar to the Nintendo 64 and some arcade games. What we wanted is a 166MHz (or a 200MHz) PowerPC 603e processor with 8MB of RAM and a 3Dfx Voodoo graphics chipset that can perform at a target resolution of 480i (640x480) with 65,536 (16-bit) colors onscreen and at 30 frames per second." —Dave Willett and John Matthews, speaking to Electronic Gaming Monthly about their upcoming console. The latter prototype would later be finalized as the main console. Rather than calling it "Spectre", the development team would name the console "Spectra", which is the plural form of spectrum. The console's final design and specifications were publicly revealed for the first time in late 1996. Images of the console displayed the Spectra logo and a controller that looks similar to the PlayStation controller, but with the addition of an analog stick. In order to develop the software for the Spectra console, Valhalla built a development kit for third-party developers that is based on the Power Macintosh 9500/150 computers, which consists of a PowerPC 604 processor running at 150 MHz with 32MB of system RAM, a 2GB hard drive and a 3Dfx Voodoo graphics card. In addition to that, Valhalla also developed a dual PCI development card that is designed for Windows and Macintosh systems, one card that features the processor and all of the components of the Spectra and another one that features the 3Dfx Voodoo graphics chip. The development card(s) needed to be connected board-by-board through a passthrough cable that is similar to Voodoo II's SLI cable in order to work. In 1997, Valhalla officially unveiled the Spectra at E3 1997, and announced that it will be released at a price of $299. Soon shortly, a technology demonstration and a showcase of games that would be released for the console would grab the attention of the audience at E3. Launch Since Valhalla have their experience in video game development as a developer, Valhalla also approached some of the world's popular third-party video game developers, some of them include Electronic Arts, Midway, Atari, and others. Category:Consoles Category:Home consoles Category:Video Game Systems Category:Game Console Category:Articles under construction